Source Description

The following source, a court decision ordering a child into correctional
education, stems from the file of Sarah
Blumenau
Names have been changed, the daughter
of a fashion saleswoman named Tanja B. and a
legal councilor named W. born out of wedlock in
Hamburg in
1897, who was sent to a reform school. Like
numerous other files of children in correctional education, her file is kept at
the Archive New Synagogue Berlin –
Centrum Judaicum in Berlin. Sarah B.’s file contains a copy of the court order
for correctional education, the correspondence between the German Israelite Community
Association
(DIGB)
Deutsch-Israelitischer
Gemeindebund and the Hamburg
welfare office, as well as letters written by
Sarah’s mother, Tanja
B., to the DIGB. Since Sarah had
to have surgery – one of her eyes was removed – the correspondence between the
physician in charge and the DIGB is part of the file as well. Files on children in
correctional education provide information on their background, the reasons they
were sent to reform school, and sometimes on the parents. Therefore they are not
only valuable sources of information on correctional education methods, but also
on the relationship between parents and children, parents’ attitudes towards
reform schools or on the institutions’ perception of the children. These files
can thus be used as sources on family history as well as on the history of
social concepts of child education.

Correctional education: bourgeois ideals and sexual connotations

Sarah B. was sent to reform school by court
order in August 1912 because she had been
stigmatized as “morally corrupted,” in particular, youth welfare officers
accused her of being “very sexually mature,” of lying and refusing to work, in
other words, her behavior went against the grain of bourgeois morality.
Moreover, her mother, Tanja B., who belonged to
the working class, had entered into a relationship with a man from a bourgeois
middle-class background who had a “legitimate” family. The source does not
provide any information on whether he was already married when Tanja B. had a relationship with him or whether he
married only after it had ended. What does become clear, however, is that
Sarah became a pawn in her parents’ power
struggle. As a Jewish girl, she was sent to the reform
school in Plötzensee founded in 1902 by
the German Israelite Community
Association
(DIGB)
Deutsch-Israelitischer
Gemeindebund, since denominational
separation of correctional education had been ordered by the Prussian state. While
Jewish institutions had to obey the general law, they also tried to reinforce
the religious identity of their Jewish charges since some girls had strayed
quite far from Judaism. Friday evenings and Jewish holidays were celebrated, the
Shabbat was observed, and
students attended synagogue. Naturally the food was kosher so that a stay at a Jewish institution was
more expensive than at a non-Jewish one. So-called “Honorable Ladies” [Ehrendamen], i. e. the wives of the DIGB board members,
volunteered to give religious instruction and hand out presents, especially for
Hanukkah, as an
expression of bourgeois charity. Very few professions were open to reform school
youth, and the DIGB took charge of finding suitable placements for them
in Jewish families or businesses. Behind this was the idea to keep them in the
care of the Jewish community. However, due to the need for domestic servants in
Jewish middle-class society, young girls often also served as cheap labor. The
gender specific character of correctional education became particularly evident
in the area of professional training. Regardless of the danger of sexual
exploitation – which the girls were supposed to be protected from, after all –
they were very often sent to work as domestic servants. In some cases, the
attempt at dissimilation succeeded while other youths rejected it and instead
hoped to integrate into mainstream society through marriage with a non-Jew.

Correctional education against opposition

Some Jewish parents did not oppose the order for correctional education and even
voluntarily surrendered their children to an institution. This was especially
the case if children did not meet their parents’ expectations and had attracted
negative attention by stealing or associating with “bad company.” This was not
the case with Tanja B. She and her daughter
were very close – at least that was the assessment of the DIGB’s reform school
board. Presumably, this was one reason why both mother and daughter refused the
order for correctional education. The mother’s appeal was unsuccessful, however,
therefore she accused the father of having manipulated the files. The conflict
between the parents was not just a confrontation between mother and father, man
and woman, but also between members of two different social classes since this
was a middle-class father who had illegitimate children with a working class
woman. Sarah had a younger brother named
Jacob, who at least at this point was not
sent to reform school because he had not shown any deviant behavior. This
certainly was a question of age as well, so that Jacob was allowed to stay with his mother.

The mother saw herself as a victim of Sarah’s
father, whose social position enabled him to exert his influence. However, the
father hardly appears at all in the file. Except for his last name and
profession there is no information on him whatsoever. It does appear that he was
either concerned about his daughter’s welfare or his reputation though, since he
tried to remove Sarah from her mother’s
custody.

Struggle against the “welfare siege”

Overall, the mother struggled against the “welfare siege” [“fürsorgliche Belagerung”] – to use Ute Frevert’s term – not
only by Jewish welfare organizations, but also by government authorities. In
January 1913, for example, the
director of public welfare in charge of this case
accused the mother of pestering the Hamburg authorities in
order to get her daughter out of reform school. He subsequently advised the
DIGB
not to be influenced by the mother’s threats. In numerous letters, the mother
pointed out that this state intervention would necessarily have a negative
impact on her daughter’s wellbeing since she had the “dire need” to “unburden
herself” to her. The mother further made a connection between her daughter’s
deviant behavior and her being sent to a reform school, as this quote shows: “If
the inmate’s unwise behavior has given cause for complaints already – then this
is only natural – Sarah is smart and has a
sharp mind.” The mother also criticized the specific method of “education” at
the institution to which Sarah had been taken.
She mainly disapproved of the long working hours, the hard physical labor
(cooking, laundering, and gardening) as well as the early rising and teaching of
conformity with bourgeois morality. It seems that the mother felt sorry for her
daughter because of the monotonous and hard work and rejected the class specific
character of reform school. The mother’s opposition in turn met with disapproval
from the DIGB
since the purpose of reform schools was to train an obedient lower class which
would not revolt against the professions dominated by the Jewish middle
class.

Women as victims of bourgeois moral

This source illustrates both the class bias of reform schools and the revolt
against it by the lower classes – especially by women who sought to live a
self-determined life. Women in particular were subjected to the bourgeois double
standard since men would have sexual relations with them, but not marry them.
Tanja B. fought for custody of her children
and refused to let either “the man who squired them” or the authorities tell her
how to raise her children, Sarah and Jacob. Contrary to most middle class men who had
illegitimate children with working class women, the father did show a certain
interest in his daughter by acknowledging his paternity and taking a position in
the matter of the daughter’s being sent to an institution and what her future
would be. Yet she also became a pawn in the power struggle between her parents,
who came from different class backgrounds, with her father being better able to
assert his opinion due to his gender and middle class background.

Rebellion against Jewish reform school

When one of Sarah’s eyes had to be removed in
November 1912, her mother’s outrage knew no
limits since she had neither been informed nor asked for permission. She sued
the surgeon who had operated on her daughter and threatened to sue the
DIGB
as well. The mother’s strong emotional reaction, dismissed as hysteria by
authorities, was an indicator of her powerlessness and anger. In Sarah B.’s case, her mother’s rebellion lead to her
desire – advised by her mother – to be christened, which the DIGB suspected to be
a ploy to be able to go back to Hamburg. Both mother
and daughter were quite creative in their resistance to orders issued by the
welfare office. When Sarah was sent to
Berlin for
job training, her mother managed to meet her twice. She also gave her stamps so
that they could keep up a secret correspondence. This case also highlights
issues of working class Jewish identity, for the daughter – supposedly prompted
by her mother – refused to remain in a Jewish institution and ran away from
Plötzensee on July 3,
1914. In her statement to the government welfare office, she claimed
she could not stand living among “sexually and morally corrupted girls.”
Declaring she had converted to Christianity, she refused to remain in a Jewish
institution, especially since she had not committed any wrongdoing and she was
deeply hurt by being made to “sleep in barred cells” and live “behind barred
windows.” As she was almost 15 years old now and therefore “had a more mature
view on everything,” she felt compelled to stand up for her rights, “for it can
surely be explained why my character, mental wellbeing and sensibilities are not
improved by this environment.” Sarah’s
statements also serve as an indicator of the hierarchy within the institution
since she did not show any solidarity with her fellow inmates but rather felt
superior to them, having in part internalized bourgeois attitudes and
stigmatizing the other reform school inmates as “corrupted.” One of the reform
school teachers criticized her explicitly for this attitude, letting her know
that she was no better than the other girls even if her mother dressed better
than theirs.

Sarah B. and her mother sought help from the
welfare office and complained about the Jewish authorities, but they did not
receive any help. Whether Sarah did indeed
convert to Christianity – she stated her mother had raised her in the Christian
faith – cannot be ascertained from her file, and Sarah’s further fate remains unknown as well.

Selected English Titles

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About the Author

Claudia Prestel, Dr. phil., teaches modern European and Jewish history as well as the history of the Middle East, especially Israel and Palestine, at the University of Leicester. Her research interests are: 19th and 20th century Central European Jewish history, especially women's and social history, Palestine Studies with a focus on gender and nationalism as well as commemorative culture.

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Non commercial - No Derivatives 4.0 International License. As long as the work is unedited and you give appropriate credit according to the Recommended Citation, you may reuse and redistribute the material in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes.